Search blog

Blog

It was hard not to be struck by the optimism in the air at IPBC Asia 2016, which took place in Shanghai earlier this week. With well over 400 delegates from major IP owners across the region and beyond in attendance, as well as advisers and intermediaries, the panel sessions and networking breaks gave as good an indication as you could find of the state of IP value creation in some of the world’s major markets.
Perhaps the most striking thing was how quickly some of
Read more

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – Australia’s national R&D agency – announced this week the creation of a new technology commercialisation fund that will be capitalised using patent assertion and licensing revenues.
According to a press release, the CSIRO Innovation Fund will “support co-investment in new spin-out and start-up companies, and SMEs engaged in the translation of research generated in the publicly-funded
Read more

The Supreme Court sided with Samsung on Tuesday when it decided that the Korean tech giant was not on the hook for $399 million in damages for infringing three design patents owned by Apple. In a relatively brief and narrowly constructed nine-page opinion, a unanimous court ruled that in a device as multi-faceted as a smartphone, the article of manufacture need not be considered to be the product in its entirety but could be a component of the product.
The relevant statute makes clear that
Read more

Barely a week after KAIST sued several major tech companies in what appeared to be the first ever patent infringement action initiated by an Asian university in the United States, another Korean educational institution has launched its own assertion campaign in the Northern Districty of California.
An affiliate of South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University filed the suits earlier this week, targeting German optical imaging company Carl Zeiss and Michigan-based LMI Technologies, which
Read more

The second day of IPBC Asia 2016 in Shanghai has just come to an end and the event is over – with delegates enjoying a final networking opportunity in the closing drinks reception. Once again, the IAM editorial team – Editor Joff Wild (JW), Asia-Pacific Editor Jacob Schindler (JS) and North America Editor Richard Lloyd (RL) - has been monitoring events. These are some of the highlights …
Injunction insights – The preliminary injunction is a powerful weapon in
Read more

The first full day of IPBC Asia 2016 in Shanghai has just come to an end. A crowd of over 400 have enjoyed a challenging programme of both plenary and breakout sessions, as well as many networking opportunities. The IAM editorial team – Editor Joff Wild (JW), Asia-Pacific Editor Jacob Schindler (JS) and North America Editor Richard Lloyd (RL) - has been monitoring events. These are some of the highlights …
Getting personal - In the opening plenary of the day, featuring
Read more

Dan McCurdy, senior vice-president at RPX with responsibility for data and technology solutions, is to leave the defensive patent aggregator to become a partner with strategic IP consultancy Quatela Lynch. He will join on 1st January 2017, when its name will also change to Quatela Lynch McCurdy. The move comes just weeks after Laura Quatela, who founded the firm with former Kodak chief IP officer Tim Lynch in 2014, was named as the new chief legal officer of Lenovo, sitting on the executive
Read more

The USPTO has indicated that any proposed fee increases, which were announced in October, will not come into effect until after President-elect Trump’s inauguration, erasing the threat of a potential showdown between the agency and Republican leaders in Congress.
Shortly after Trump’s election victory GOP Congressional leaders including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Judiciary Committee head Bob Goodlatte wrote to the heads of government agencies warning them against
Read more

Issue 81 of IAM has been published and is available online for subscribers. Hard copies are in the post and should be with you shortly.
Everyone operating in the US patent market knows just how tough it is and brokers probably realise it more than most. After all, they are the ones on the transactional frontline and their livelihoods depend on getting deals done. In issue 81’s cover story, we publish the results of the annual Richardson Oliver Law Group survey of the US brokered
Read more

The long-running dispute over Apple’s infamous “slide to unlock” patent is one of the best known battles of the smartphone patent wars. But in China, a fight over another phone unlocking method – one that was introduced in part to avoid infringing Apple’s patented sliding method – may just be getting started. And Samsung Electronics has come out the loser in round one.
Last Sunday, a Chinese-language news site based in coastal Fujian province reported
Read more